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DF - Inside Demon's Souls Remake on PS5: The Bluepoint Technology Breakdown

ethomaz

Banned
I played both Bloodborne, Sekiro and Demons's Souls on their original platform and never had problem with them but smoother FPS will make combat feel much better.
I added a shadow edit :D
I found the bosses easy with some enemies being way hard to deal... there are two bosses really hard but I believe they are opcional (specific for a pure world color).

Bloodborne was a cake walk due the dodge and parry + visceral... more action going for the enemies heads.

Demon's Souls is about tension on each step... environment that makes you go really crazy waiting the worst in every corner... to have an ideia when I saw some enemies I had to lure him to back a bit to enter in a place that I could deal with him without any incident.

Demon's Souls is really a unique and wonderful experience.
 
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geordiemp

Member
Will keep updating this post as I go along.
EDIT: All done, got the most interesting parts(to me) everything else someone else can summarize or you can go watch the video yourself.

Once you tell me realtime global illumination......my ears perk up.
Its an interesting way to do it sounds similar to Remedys MultiScale Global Illumination.


1440p60 Temporal Upscaling for performance mode.
2160p30 Native for Cinematic mode.


The Temporal Upscaling is good enough to NOT need Native 4K........I hope every single game uses 1440p60 and 2160p30.
But seriously fuck native 4K forever until next nextgen consoles can do it without even stressing.


No Raytracing.
Didnt have manpower/time to actually implement it.


SSD usage.
Had to work to get "pacing" to be correct to let the player actually breath. Otherwise they could probably go much faster for certain situations.
Death and return is fuck you seconds.

Hardware accelerated compression/decompression basically a game changer to actually allow fast SSD to truly work, streaming data in but needing to decompress would make the SSD almost moot.

Using SSD to stream in basically only sections that the player needs in realtime.....allowing a much much much denser high fidelity environments


Polycount?
Who gives a shit! Its enough detail.

Tessellation used liberally to really give the environments a lot of detail.
Multilayered tessellation also in so effectively very very clever texturing being used to simulate the "oil" from the spider spreading towards the player.

Particles for days motherfuckers, particles everywhere.....fully GPU driven.

Shadows being done by Capsule shadowing in combination with screen space directional occlusion to make proper soft shadows.
Every single light source has dynamic shadows active...including sparks from sword contact.
Tessellated surfaces also receive said shadows so mate.


Houdini was used for procedural work on materials and geometry making it abit easier to get all the environments to look amazing and having destructible environments.
(Anyone who has tried to use Houdini knows whenever someone tells you something is easier in Houdini, they are basically telling you they are much smarter than you).


Multi tiered destructibles.
Things can break and land on each other....when you break the thing that the first thing loaded on it can/will be rewoken up and have its physics recalulcated.
Many games either put physics to sleep forever, or objects disappear.

Said destructibles are actually saved to disk so that when you move from one area to another and back, the things you broke are reloaded back in the same place they were before.
Its a shit ton of Data moving around.

Pretty much everything has 5 states of damage (burnt etc) they hope they caught everything and dont need to patch stuff.....because they have done a ton of work already.


New physics for ragdolls.
Yes the janky ragdolls we love/hate are more realistic now.
They are heavier so you can still play with them, but it wont be as floaty as it was before....can still play with them....psuh them off cliffs, place them in bonfires etc etc.

Pretty much every enemy has some dynamic realtime physics being calculated.
Even fat mass.

New mocap captured for the game, including all new female set.
All weapons redone with new animations.....old fans will still know the timings because they are still correct.....they just look new. (imagine trying to make new animations to match already recorded animations without breaking the old timings, or making your animations seem janky)


Tempest Audio?
Higher quality audio can actually be streamed in because the SSD is so fast something people never really thought about.
3D positional audio obviously in, full 360 degree directional audio.
Accurate enough to hear exactly where an arrow is coming from before it even hits you.
Dev feels headphones are better for this make sure to set it up correctly, its totally worth it.


Still havent reached the CPU limits.

Go buy the game now and keep keep Bluepoint entertained by guessing what they are going to do next.

Nice summary, thank you. I skipped most of the video thanks to your summary, picked up a couple of extra bits...

They mentioned a voxel like GI I found interesting, and also some GPU procedural generation.
 
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Finished it. Solid interview... no Geometry Engine question tho.... even if it were to have been swatted down. But a lot of good questions asked so can't really be picky at that.

No RT, settled.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Nice summary, thank you. I skipped most of the video thanks to your summary, picked up a couple of extra bits...

They mentioned a voxel like GI I found interesting, and also some GPU procedural generation.

Yeah they have G.Buffer probes of the environment scattered around that are then updated as needed.
Its clearly a combination technique with their own spices.....it reminds me somewhat of Remedys Multi Scale Global Illumination, but different in otherways.

We will have to wait for Siggraph 2021 or 2022 to read more about it as im sure they are keeping it close to the chest for now.

Its working really well from what I can tell which is why I needs to learn more about it.
But ill be patient.
 

skneogaf

Member
I don't believe the 4k@30fps option should be in the game as it isn't needed.

The image quality is absolutely amazing in 1440p using temporal up scaling and the 60fps cleans up movement of the graphics where 30fps is blur city.

Blue point games are god tier.
 

ethomaz

Banned
I don't believe the 4k@30fps option should be in the game as it isn't needed.

The image quality is absolutely amazing in 1440p using temporal up scaling and the 60fps cleans up movement of the graphics where 30fps is blur city.

Blue point games are god tier.
Do remember you are watching YouTube.
You will probably see ore differences between the modes in your TV.
 

dano1

A Sheep
I wasn’t going to get this game right away. Because I know it’s going to frustrate me. But damn it’s beautiful and they need to get paid for 3 years of hard work!!
 

skneogaf

Member
Do remember you are watching YouTube.
You will probably see ore differences between the modes in your TV.

Nah I don't think the difference in graphics are worth playing at half the fluidity, everything in 30fps that you're seeing as you circling around trying to get a back stab in blurred out so hides the extra details that may be there.
 

bender

What time is it?
Come on Sony, just buy these guys

giphy.gif


Infamous Collection!

giphy.gif


Resistance collection first

giphy.gif
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Game is simply stunning. Not thrilled about Sony and co. rereleasing the same games at the start of a gen. But if they are gonna rerelease the same shit, at least it looks and plays substantially better. It's night and day difference compared to the O.G.

I think I'm far enough removed from DS that I would find myself surprised by the same stuff again too, so there's that. Not gonna pick up a PS5 for it, but it's one I WILL get eventually down the road when the PS5 has a decent number of exclusives worth buying a system over.

Very impressive. Not surprised though, BluePoint always, ALWAYS do stunning work . Probably the best port house on the market, maybe followed by Nixxes. Though, I feel like maybe calling this a port is a bit disingenuous. Semantics or not, great job BluePoint!
 

LucidFlux

Member
This was such a great interview, massive applause to the Bluepoint and WWS teams.

My decision to play in 60fps mode was also solidified here.
 

JonkyDonk

Member
Game is super impressive and for a launch title too. Can't wait to get my hands on it and also to see what they work on next.
 

onesvenus

Member
The dynamic lighting seems like it doesn't need RT, nor GI. You have more knowledge in the matter, I admit that I thought dynamic shadows/lighting can't be done without RT. What's the real difference?
Dynamic shadowing and lighting has been done for a long time, basically anytime you have played a game with a moving light that projects shadows, that's doing dynamic shadow and lighting. See here Doom3 where the gun has a light and that "zombie" is casting a shadow to the wall and Forza Horizon 4, where all cars project shadows from other cars headlights, and even Severance: Blade of Darkness back in 2001 was doing it

2KKJpG2.jpg


iATgA5X.jpg


FaJdEj1.jpg



Being dynamic means that it can't be precomputed so it has to be done on the fly, and that takes a lot of resources. There are a lot of workarounds to it: from lowering the shadow resolution or update frequency to having different time-of-day shadowing and lighting and blend between those. for example.
 

bender

What time is it?
My only fear is what Bluepoint would do to Yorda's model, because I honestly was not fan of Wander's model in remake.
BufdwPR.jpg

Character and enemy modeling is a weakness for sure. I also think their lighting implementations also tend to change the tone for the worse.
 

ANIMAL1975

Member
And it's finally reality! After an intire generation being in the top (if not first place) of the most requested remakes, for Playstation long time missing masterpieces,... Demons Souls is here! And its once again a masterpiece.
So no RT after all. A couple weeks ago, that Gavin guy flip flopped it had RT or not one day apart in different interviews.
Woah thanks mate for clearing that up. What a dramatic set of events...
 

Belmonte

Member
I don't think the framerate made bosses difficult... even the bad framepace on PS3 didn't affect the difficult of the game.
To be fair I found only 2 bosses really difficult.

A lot of enemies are more difficult than the bosses themselves.

The player can see the movement of the enemies clearer when a game has 60 FPS so it is more clear when to defend, dodge and attack. If the bosses speed/gameplay is untouched, which seems to be the case judging by videos, 60 FPS will make the game slightly easier.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
that was pretty dope, all the dynamic animation on the first boss. the way the chains swing and shit. it's all interacting in real time!
 

FunkMiller

Member
It's probably too obvious.

Bloodborne is too soon (PS6 more likely). MGS4 is another prime candidate but Konami.

It feels to me like the scuttlebutt around Bluepoint remaking MGS is about the sane as it was for DeS a couple of years back.

It‘s their most likely next project IMO.
 

bender

What time is it?
It feels to me like the scuttlebutt around Bluepoint remaking MGS is about the sane as it was for DeS a couple of years back.

It‘s their most likely next project IMO.

It would also open the door for the Silent Hill series. But let's not dream.
 

Chiggs

Member
I rag on DF all the time, largely because they stink, but this is a good video, and you can see a lot of effort went into it.

Nice work, chaps.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Game looks absolutely insane, awesome content from DF.
Performance mode for me on this one, still looks like a real-time rendition of RE Remake backgrounds on Gamecube.

Dynamic shadowing and lighting has been done for a long time, basically anytime you have played a game with a moving light that projects shadows, that's doing dynamic shadow and lighting. See here Doom3 where the gun has a light and that "zombie" is casting a shadow to the wall and Forza Horizon 4, where all cars project shadows from other cars headlights, and even Severance: Blade of Darkness back in 2001 was doing it

2KKJpG2.jpg


iATgA5X.jpg


FaJdEj1.jpg



Being dynamic means that it can't be precomputed so it has to be done on the fly, and that takes a lot of resources. There are a lot of workarounds to it: from lowering the shadow resolution or update frequency to having different time-of-day shadowing and lighting and blend between those. for example.
You forgot the GOAT implementation of all time. Silent Hill 2 on PS2.
Those soft shadows are still:

So-good.gif


Can't thank enough the folks behind Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition for bringing them on PC.
 

splattered

Member
As beautiful as this game is i can't help but wonder if this will be both the first game all PS5 owners buy with the console but also the first game they rush to Gamestop to trade in for something easier haha ... i LOVE the souls series but casuals generally don't like them at all. I can imagine most Gamestops having an entire wall with used copies of this game come Christmas time :p
 
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